The Hammer is the brain child of Adam Carolla.  He fought hard to get this movie made, so what did the critics think?

The script depends heavily on familiar stand-up comedy bits, but it's full of sharp wisecracks and slacker charm. --  The New York Post

Carolla's gangling charm and improv rhythms nicely loosen up helmer Charles Herman-Wurmfeld's studied setups without ever deviating from the story's solid underlying structure.  -- Variety

So many movies these days are overworked or overblown: The Hammer feels genuinely tossed-off. It isn't a great movie, or even a consistently good one. Yet it gets to elusive feelings about failure and success, hope and mortality. -- The Wall Street Journal

If you liked Rocky Balboa you should be in good shape, since it's exactly the same movie, just aimed at a teeny-tiny-bit younger demographic and with an affectless leading man who avoids hambone acting by not acting at all. -- Salon.com